CHAPTER SIXTEEN

This One's Going to Hurt

Nick was excited about this assignment, unlike the one with Henry. He showed up without his usual semi-scowl. I’m sure it had something to do with a desperate hope for a sample of Ryan’s world-class paté. But since my plan involved no opportunity for Ryan to slip on his apron, Nick was going to be one disappointed camera man/gourmand.

“Where to?” he asked as we got into the town car Olivia had sent.

“Straight to Ryan’s.”

“Will he be awake?”

“The sleepier the better,” I confessed. Chefs are notoriously late-night folks, like theatre people. “He’ll be too tired to object until it’s too late.”

“Object?” Nick started to look worried. “To what?”

I smiled. I did like the sense of power that came with my magazine connections. “You’ll see when he does.”

<<>>

Ryan answered his door in a loose pair of sweatpants. He looked like he had just stumbled out of bed. Perfect. I suddenly remembered why I had kept dating him for a good month past the time when I knew he wasn’t the man for me. He could take my breath away without even trying. The man took good care of himself, and didn’t overindulge in his own treats.

“Grab your toothbrush and let’s go,” I said cheerfully. Maybe my voice was a little on the loud side, because he winced.

“Go where?”

“You agreed to be mine for two days, remember? You do want the feature and cover, right?”

Nick snapped a picture, perfectly capturing Ryan’s dawning realization that he may just have made a mistake by not asking more questions about the actual “date” instead of the restaurant feature.

“I thought we could just hang out at my place.” He was rapidly waking up. “In fact, come in. I can cook up some Eggs Benedict–”

I held up my hand to cut him off before my weakness for his cooking could get the better of me. I knew how that story ended – with me well fed, but lonely.

“My readers are looking for something a little more romantic,” I said without blinking. My readers. It had a nice sound, but I only knew of three so far – Nick, Emily and my mother.

Nick snapped a few pictures of Ryan grabbing his toothbrush and tossing a pair of jeans, some shirts and a sweater in his backpack. He got a few of me grinning, too. I looked like I was the one in charge. Being the only one who knows what’s about to happen does that to a person, I guess.

When we all three piled into the limo, Nick on one side and Ryan and I next to each other on the other, I slipped the driver a piece of paper with an address. It was folded, so even Nick’s nosy glance couldn’t see where we were going.

As we approached, I took out my phone and pretended to be sending a text. When the driver stopped and opened the door for us, I got a perfect shot of Nick’s face. He got a perfect – and much better – shot of Ryan’s face.

Both of them looked at me. “Sporting goods store?” Ryan asked.

“We’ll need equipment where we’re going.”

“Where’s that?”

He had his hand on the door handle, like he was considering making a run for it.

“Where do you take a chef when you want to get him out of the kitchen?” I asked.

Neither of them answered me.

“Where there is no kitchen,” I answered myself.

Tina had already placed my order, so the only thing to do was to load it into the SUV that was conveniently double parked, complete with driver, at the curb.

I let the guys handle that part.

<<>>

The campground was two hours from the city. I’d registered that, but hadn’t put two and two together. Two hours. Two exes on a date. Nothing to do but sit in the back of an SUV and…. Yeah. It was much too soon for any make out session. Maybe on the way home, if we were still speaking to each other.

Fortunately for me, it was a nice SUV (I’d need to thank Tina, again, for knowing what I needed better than I did). There was a little table between the two captain’s chairs that Ryan and I sat in. Inside the table was a deck of cards and some poker chips. The chairs swiveled, so we included Nick in the game. Poker with two people wasn’t all that exciting, and a game of War was a little too ironic for my taste.

I took out the cards and began to shuffle.

“Should we make this interesting?” Ryan asked. He’d uncovered a little fridge on his side of the SUV. He’d quickly uncapped two beers, one for him and one for Nick. I’d settled for sparkling water. It was only ten a.m. Besides, I could see I was going to need my wits about me. I’d scored a big surprise with the camping gear, but now they were onto me.

“Okay,” I answered warily, recognizing that he was fully awake and his eyes were gleaming with anticipation of revenge. He couldn’t put any chili powder in my hot chocolate this time, because there wasn’t any hot chocolate in the supplies. Just a battery operated K-cup coffeemaker, with tamper-proof K-cups. And not a speck of chili powder to be had, either, just in case.

He raised his eyebrows. “Winner gets the air mattress that doesn’t go flat.”

I had expected bigger stakes. “They’re new. None of them will go flat.”

The guys laughed in unison, which was a little bit unsettling. Ryan said, “There’s always one that goes flat. Guaranteed. That’s camping.”

Nick added, with a big grin. “And there’s always one side of the tent that leaks, too.”

I protested. “It isn’t supposed to rain.”

They laughed in unison again.

I dealt the hand, hoping the cards were in my favor. I didn’t want to sleep on a flat air mattress, or on the leaky side of a tent.